This version of “Caedmon’s Hymn” shows how Old English evolved. It also features early use of a punctuation mark that readers of English take for granted today—the period—but not in the expected way

April 30, 2026 11:39 a.m.

The page of the manuscript in Rome that contains “Caedmon’s Hymn” Rome, Biblioteca Nazionale Centrale “Vittorio Emanuele II”

The English language’s oldest poem is “ Caedmon ’s Hymn ,” nine lines of verse composed by a Northumbrian herdsman who lived in the seventh century C.E. Caedmon couldn’t read or write, but after he dreamed of a stranger telling him to sing of “the beginning of things,” he began speaking “verses which he had never heard.”

The cowherd moved into a monastery, learned biblical scripture and reportedly produced much vernacular poetry on sacred Christian themes. But of all his work, only “Caedmon’s Hymn” survives.…